Summer 2022 (aka “The Longest 3 Months”)

Friday, April 29, 2022 - Match Day - was so full of joy. We had already planned to spend the weekend visiting my sister and her family in Reading, Pennsylvania, and so we spent the 6-hour drive calling and texting everyone we knew to tell them the good news. Let me tell you, there was nothing more special than sharing this incredible joy and excitement with so many people I loved. When we got to my sister’s, we had a great evening sharing dinner, playing with my 10-month-old nephew, and basking in the excitement and anticipation of our growing family. The following day, my sister and brother-in-law helped us stage a photo shoot with pink and gold “It’s A Girl!” balloons for our social media announcement.

The next couple of weeks were continuous joy. Mother’s Day was the weekend after we found out we’d been matched, and it was also our first Sunday at church after getting the news. People were so excited and even wished me a happy Mother’s Day. A family passed along their girls’ hand me downs. Everyone wanted to know when the girls would come home and said they couldn’t wait to meet them. I finally was able to do some shopping and buy the cutest little girl things. It was a little scary, but an incredibly wonderful time.

Meanwhile, because the girls lived in another state, there was paperwork that needed to be processed before we could start any visits. We were told the paperwork would take 4-6 weeks, and we could tentatively plan on having them in our home by July 1. The timing felt perfect. We’d have time to settle in and bond before school started, not to mention do all the fun things outdoors. Elizabeth’s birthday was at the end of June, and we were excited thinking we could actually celebrate it with her, since we knew there would be visits before the girls came home for good.

Throughout May, we kept in touch with the foster mom, asking anything and everything we could think of to help make the girls feel most at home with us. What were their favorite foods? How was their bedroom decorated? What flavor toothpaste did they like? Literally any little thing we could think of, we asked. We put together a scrapbook with pictures of our house, our cats, and us doing things we enjoyed. We took care to decorate it with their favorite colors and stickers of things we knew they liked. We asked what toys they would want to bring with them so we didn’t buy duplicates and could figure out how much space would be needed to store them. I contacted therapists, pediatricians, and the school district to see what I could do to start getting things set up. I wanted to get absolutely everything done that I could before meeting them, so that when we met them I could just focus on being present and building the relationships.

May turned into June. And June started to get weird.

The seed was planted when foster mom (FM) posted pics of her son’s high school graduation to Facebook. It was the strangest thing seeing my children in someone else’s family photos. Not to mention, I didn’t think kids in foster care were supposed to be posted on social media. Elizabeth was on the son’s shoulders in the family picture, and Essie was being held by someone who wasn’t me in every picture. Now, of course I’m glad she had people to give her that physical affection and love. But I can’t lie that it wasn’t weird seeing it.

Then, the foster family went on a vacation with their large extended family. Again, I saw pictures posted of my children on someone else’s family vacation. Specific pictures of them too - playing on the beach and at the pool with other kids, even a video of Essie doing karaoke with some other girls - it wasn’t just random shots of them in the background of other photos. It felt weird. But I didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t want to seem possessive when I hadn’t even met them yet.

Around this time, we were trading emails back and forth with FM to see if she’d heard any updates about the paperwork processing. Before the pictures had been posted to Facebook, I had asked in an email how vacation was. Her response? “Vacation was great! They literally swam and dug in the sand 8 hours a day!”

That was it. And then a few days or so later, these pictures pop up on Facebook.

Is it just me, or does that feel a little passive aggressive? Does it feel a little like FM purposely withholding information from us, but then being okay sharing things on Facebook?

I should also mention that, shortly after being matched, we created a shared iCloud album for FM to put pictures of the girls. But instead of posting in there, she posted to Facebook. I can remember two times that she posted anything in the shared album that summer. One was a couple of vacation pictures during the trip, which had been unexpected and very appreciated. The other was a single video that she quickly recorded after Ryan asked for one several times. But aside from that, every picture we saw prior to meeting them was on Facebook.

And then there was the therapy dog. FM asked us over email if we’d be open to a therapy dog for the girls, saying their family dog had died recently and the girls missed her, and she thought that having a dog might help with the transition. We already had two cats at home, and we were already anxious about the massive responsibility of becoming first time parents. Adding a dog to the mix felt like a bit much. But we thought about it, and we said we’d be open to bringing the dog home prior to meeting the girls so we could see how it got along with the cats, and that way the girls didn’t know about it and so wouldn’t be heartbroken if it didn’t work out. FM came back and said she was thinking the dog would come to their house as soon as its training was done, then would move with the girls. If it didn’t end up working out, she said, she’d take the dog back to her house. Which felt like an extremely unfair situation to put us in. To make us the “bad guys” who got rid of their dog. I even asked FM for the dog trainer’s contact info so we could arrange a visit, and got no response. So eventually, we just said no.

And then finally…there was Elizabeth’s birthday.

Our girl turned 8 on June 27. We were incredibly disappointed that we wouldn’t get to celebrate with her. But we did get some good news that day: the interstate paperwork had finally been completed! Our case worker called to tell us the good news, and said that we would likely get to meet them in the next two weeks. Finally! A light at the end of a very frustrating month.

But wait…never mind.

A day or two later, two things happened that just incense me.

One, FM posted pictures from Elizabeth’s birthday celebration. To Facebook. Without sending a single one directly to us or putting anything in the shared album. So, to recap: I had to discover my daughter’s birthday photos on Facebook. There was one of her at the pool, eating pizza with some kids I didn’t know. There was one of her smiling with a very pink, frilly cake - which, from everything we’d learned up to that point, seemed very unlike her. There was one of her blowing out candles, with FM’s arm around her. The whole thing felt majorly disrespectful. Once again, am I glad that our daughter got a birthday celebration? That she had a family that cared? That she had pictures to look back on? Absolutely. But it felt so inappropriate to post them to Facebook without at least sending them directly to us as well.

And then the next day, I was walking with some friends at the park when I got a call from our case worker. Apparently, she had talked with the girls’ case worker that morning to discuss logistics of introducing us to one another. And she found out that the girls had no idea that they were going to be adopted. In fact, Essie apparently thought they had already been adopted by the foster family.

We had been matched with our daughters for two months at that point. Their biological mother’s rights had been terminated for 8 months. We had been told that we would likely start visits within two weeks of the paperwork being processed. But now, we were learning that they had no idea they were going to be adopted, which apparently meant that our timeline would be pushed back again.

Don’t worry, our case worker said. They’re going to start double therapy sessions. This shouldn’t delay things too much. However, she did call this turn of events “unacceptable.”

The next couple of weeks were rough. First we were supposed to have a case worker visit that got cancelled, which wasn’t a big deal but felt like just another rug that got pulled out from under us. Next we were supposed to have a meeting with our agency and the girls’ team to discuss a plan, and half the people who were supposed to be at the meeting didn’t get the memo. Then we were told by FM that she was going to have a meeting with the therapists to figure out the best way to tell the girls and facilitate the transition. She stated her agreement that it would be good for the girls to come home before school started, which unfortunately for our district was very early that year - August 10. We didn’t have a lot of time.

It was Friday, July 8, around 4:45 pm that we got the email.

FM and therapists had met. They had outlined a plan. They would meet with both girls on Monday, July 11, to “introduce” the concept of adoption and explain the difference between birth, foster, and adoptive families. They would then meet again on August 4 - nearly a full month later - and have the foster mom and dad explain to the girls why they were not adopting them and tell them about us. And then they proposed scheduling another session on August 8 for Ryan and me to come to their office to meet the girls in person.

Introduce the concept of adoption and discuss different types of families. Months after we all knew they were going to be adopted, and years after they’d already been in foster care. Wait another three and a half weeks before actually explaining to the girls what’s happening. And then meet their new parents in the therapy office.

There’s really nothing I can say to justify the absurdity. This was a terrible plan. It was a ridiculous plan. It was only going to create more anxiety and behavior problems for the girls because they CLEARLY would know something was up, but not know what it was. The therapists were WAY too involved. Telling the girls about the adoption should NEVER have happened in the therapy office - it should have happened at home, and then therapy used as a follow up for processing. And, despite our many reminders about school and sincere requests for them not to have to start late, this was clearly going to be disregarded.

But, we had literally zero say in any of this. Our own agency told us to stay quiet and let them handle the difficult conversations. We were supposed to become these girls’ parents, yet no one was letting us have ANY input to what was best for them. All people did was remind us that these were professionals who’d been working with them for years, and we didn’t know them. That we weren’t the parents yet. That we just had to be cooperative and go with the flow and eventually decisions would be ours to make.

As someone who has spent my entire adult life working on finding, trusting, and articulating my own voice, this was incredibly traumatic. Honestly, I feel overdramatic saying that, but it’s true. By definition, trauma occurs when an individual feels that a situation is more overwhelming to their nervous system than their capacity to cope. There is nothing that prepares you for what it feels like when people tell you you can’t make decisions, or even give input, on what’s best for your child. When you have to sit back helplessly and let things happen that you firmly and fully believe are harmful. When you know that, if you do speak up and are perceived as confrontational, people have the power to decide your children can’t be yours anymore. There is nothing normal about this. There is nothing okay about this. And unfortunately, we still weren’t anywhere near the end.

Even as I type this, I have anxiety in my body imagining someone from our agency or the girls’ former team will read this. Just last week, after going back and forth on it for nearly a year, I emailed the girls’ former therapists asking if they can send me records of the girls’ time working with them. I am their legal parent now. No one has any authority over me anymore. And yet, I still feel SO ANXIOUS communicating with them. I know they can’t do anything. And as a therapist, I know that parents have the right to review their kids’ records at any time. I know this. And yet I still feel so afraid of them.